I can't believe they'd send somethign that important via paper!

From the first day I enrolled at UTAS they sent all important correspondence electronically to my UTAS e-mail address. All bills to be paid, all enrolment confirmations, all "turn in this form or you won't be enrolled" notices, everything.

When I moved from our house in Fern Tree (technically South Hobart) to clovis_t's house in Allens Rivulet in November of last year I made a point of going to the main uni office and turning in my change of address, even though they only did electronic correspondence.

I thought I had also turned in my change of address with them when I moved from there to Italy in July.

Today my advisor sent me a scanned copy of the paper letter the graduate resource office sent me. It was a *paper* letter, dated 14 October, and sent to the address in South Hobart, where I've not lived for a full year! They did not also send an electronic copy! I can't believe they'd send something so important by snail mail. What are they thinking? Paper is too easily lost and is impossible to track once sent. This means that I've lost out on nearly three weeks of time in which I could have been making the (thankfully minor) corrections the thesis needs. If they had send an electronic copy on the same day they posted the paper version I would have been able to work on those changes straight away. Sigh.

Of course, they set themselves up for my disappointment in their choice of delivery methods--if the university had ever sent me anything in paper hitherto, I'd have expected them to do so this time. Do they really think that most phd students spend the many weeks after submitting their thesis waiting in Hobart for the examiner's results? I don't think so--most of us get a job and move on...

I can't believe they'd send somethign that important via paper!

From the first day I enrolled at UTAS they sent all important correspondence electronically to my UTAS e-mail address. All bills to be paid, all enrolment confirmations, all "turn in this form or you won't be enrolled" notices, everything.

When I moved from our house in Fern Tree (technically South Hobart) to clovis_t's house in Allens Rivulet in November of last year I made a point of going to the main uni office and turning in my change of address, even though they only did electronic correspondence.

I thought I had also turned in my change of address with them when I moved from there to Italy in July.

Today my advisor sent me a scanned copy of the paper letter the graduate resource office sent me. It was a *paper* letter, dated 14 October, and sent to the address in South Hobart, where I've not lived for a full year! They did not also send an electronic copy! I can't believe they'd send something so important by snail mail. What are they thinking? Paper is too easily lost and is impossible to track once sent. This means that I've lost out on nearly three weeks of time in which I could have been making the (thankfully minor) corrections the thesis needs. If they had send an electronic copy on the same day they posted the paper version I would have been able to work on those changes straight away. Sigh.

Of course, they set themselves up for my disappointment in their choice of delivery methods--if the university had ever sent me anything in paper hitherto, I'd have expected them to do so this time. Do they really think that most phd students spend the many weeks after submitting their thesis waiting in Hobart for the examiner's results? I don't think so--most of us get a job and move on...

editorial changes done

I've now completed the list of editorial chances suggested by both examiners. I will never, ever forget the fact that photos of thin sections are taken in either crossed-polarized or plane-polarized light. Just because plane polarized light photos tend to be less colourful than crossed-polarized light photos does not make them "plain". Why will I never forget? Because I had to open some 19 different CorelDraw documents to change "plain" to "plane" for 27 different figure captions. The other edits, being in the Word document itself, were far easier to make.

I've sent an e-mail to my advisor asking him if he thinks the various comments within the text of the one examiner about things he'd have done differently, but appearing before his list titled "minor corrections" are things I should act upon or not.

Tomorrow, while waiting for his reply I'll give the whole thesis a read-over and see if I can find any other places where I could have better expressed what I was trying to say.

From there my plan will be to find a way to create compiled pdf documents, so that I can create the electronic version of the thesis which I am strongly encouraged to turn in to the university along with the paper version. Once I have pdf files which have the figures facing the pages which they should face, if printed double sided, I'll take them to a local print shop and print and bind one copy for me to keep, checking to be certain that the printed version matches my vision for the document. When I'm happy with that I'll send the pdfs to the UTAS print shop with instructions for them to print and bind the final copies and get them submitted from there (there is no point in my taking the time to post the physical copies over the ocean, when I can do it electronically). Assuming that it all gets there by the 14 December deadline the Uni gave me, my degree will be awarded in the December graduation batch. I would, of course, love to have that all done before 1 December, or, at the latest, before 10 December. Why? Because I think that I'd like it if "the question" (about life, the universe, and everything) turns out to be "at what age did Reia complete her PhD?", and I'm seriously running out of time for that one, with the birthday only a month away...

Tomorrow I've got work to do for my post-doc--it is time to upload the next experiment, since we downloaded #2 yesterday... Oh--I forgot to pick up the capsules today--they should be mounted in epoxy and ready to polish. I need to remember to do that too. Guess I must have been distracted...

editorial changes done

I've now completed the list of editorial chances suggested by both examiners. I will never, ever forget the fact that photos of thin sections are taken in either crossed-polarized or plane-polarized light. Just because plane polarized light photos tend to be less colourful than crossed-polarized light photos does not make them "plain". Why will I never forget? Because I had to open some 19 different CorelDraw documents to change "plain" to "plane" for 27 different figure captions. The other edits, being in the Word document itself, were far easier to make.

I've sent an e-mail to my advisor asking him if he thinks the various comments within the text of the one examiner about things he'd have done differently, but appearing before his list titled "minor corrections" are things I should act upon or not.

Tomorrow, while waiting for his reply I'll give the whole thesis a read-over and see if I can find any other places where I could have better expressed what I was trying to say.

From there my plan will be to find a way to create compiled pdf documents, so that I can create the electronic version of the thesis which I am strongly encouraged to turn in to the university along with the paper version. Once I have pdf files which have the figures facing the pages which they should face, if printed double sided, I'll take them to a local print shop and print and bind one copy for me to keep, checking to be certain that the printed version matches my vision for the document. When I'm happy with that I'll send the pdfs to the UTAS print shop with instructions for them to print and bind the final copies and get them submitted from there (there is no point in my taking the time to post the physical copies over the ocean, when I can do it electronically). Assuming that it all gets there by the 14 December deadline the Uni gave me, my degree will be awarded in the December graduation batch. I would, of course, love to have that all done before 1 December, or, at the latest, before 10 December. Why? Because I think that I'd like it if "the question" (about life, the universe, and everything) turns out to be "at what age did Reia complete her PhD?", and I'm seriously running out of time for that one, with the birthday only a month away...

Tomorrow I've got work to do for my post-doc--it is time to upload the next experiment, since we downloaded #2 yesterday... Oh--I forgot to pick up the capsules today--they should be mounted in epoxy and ready to polish. I need to remember to do that too. Guess I must have been distracted...